Amniocentesis

ARTICLES ABOUT AMNIOCENTESIS BY DATE - PAGE 2

The woman from Iowa was desperate. She already had two children with Down's syndrome, and now she was pregnant again. But it was 1966, and the doctors had no way to tell her whether the baby would be normal. She chose to have an abortion, which was illegal at that time, and died. "Being able to tell a patient yes or no became much more important (at that point, when the woman died), not just theoretical," said Dr. Henry Nadler, the pediatrician and geneticist who led the research that developed amniocentesis, the first prenatal test that could diagnose a myriad of birth and genetic defects.

By Anna Quindlen, (copyright) 1988 New York Times News Service | May 29, 1988

It's interesting to note the way medical miracles can go from brave new world to simple acceptance almost overnight. Once it was a major news event when a heart from one person was placed in the chest of another. Once it stopped the presses when a baby was born of an egg fertilized outside a woman's body. Today there have been many heart transplants and many babies conceived in vitro, and people speak knowledgeably of donating organs, or of infertility. It was not so many years ago that few of us could pronounce, much less talk about, amniocentesis.

By Walter M. Weber, Associate general counsel, Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights | July 24, 1987

I am surprised that The Tribune was so cavalier in denouncing the amendments to the Illinois Right of Conscience Act (July 13). These amendments protect a doctor's right not to be an accomplice in the death of a preborn child. Statistics demonstrate that amniocentesis is more likely to provoke a miscarriage than it is to detect a serious handicap. In other words, routine amniocentesis is simply bad medicine. But even if amniocentesis and other diagnostic techniques were completely risk-free, the conscientious doctor cannot ignore the use of these tests for "search-and-destroy" missions against "imperfect" children.

Another one of those nuisance attempts to nibble away at legal abortion has slipped almost unnoticed through the General Assembly. This one is particularly offensive and Gov. James Thompson should veto it quickly to save the courts the bother of declaring it unconstitutional. What the General Assembly did was amend the Right of Conscience Act, which says a physician does not have to perform or participate in medical care that violates his or her conscience. It added wording to say that doctors can refuse to "perform, assist, counsel, suggest, recommend, refer or participate in diagnostic testing to detect fetal abnormalities which may lead to an abortion, regardless of whether such tests are considered routine or normal medical practice."

A suggestion to the Catholic hierarchy and to those theologians who espouse the Vatican's recent statement on artificial insemination and amniocentesis: For your next vacation or sabbatical, I suggest you spend it with parents who are unable to bear children through "natural methods." Tell them that, even though modern technology will permit it, it is "morally illicit" for them to conceive children through artificial means. Try to convince them that, despite all of the advances made in medicine over the past 20 years, it is theologically wrong for them to benefit from them.

By Gail Mrozak, Public relations director, Illinois Citizens for Life | September 30, 1986

Your news item, "Amniocentesis as a weapon," in the Sept. 14 TempoWoman, missed a point in the sex-discrimination-via-abortion discussion. It's happening right here. Abortion for any reason, including the sex of the child, is legal in Illinois. A 1984 state law prohibiting abortion based on the child's sex is still under a temporary restraining order by Federal District Court Judge Nordberg. The case, Keith vs. Daley, restrained the law the day after it was passed. The late Sir William Liley, creator of amniocentesis, publicly decried the "search and destroy" use of his technique in sex selection and the destruction of the preborn handicapped.

Indian women are increasingly using amniocentesis to determine the sex of a fetus and have abortions if the test results show their babies are girls. Though no one has hard and fast figures, one survey of 8,000 abortions done in Bombay hospitals showed that all fetuses but one were female. Amniocentesis, used elsewhere to identify birth defects in high risk mothers, is both cheap and widely advertised in Bombay. The test, argues Vibhuti Patel of the Forum Against Sex Determination and Sex Pre-Selection Technique, reduces amniocentesis to "a lethal weapon to be used against women."

Dear Dr. Johnson: When an amniocentesis is done during pregnancy, what exactly is studied? ANSWER: During amniocentesis, fluid from the water surrounding the developing fetus in the womb is removed. Many different tests can be done on the fluid itself. In addition, cells from the developing fetus (which are always present in the fluid) may be grown in laboratory culture and then studied for various abnormalities in the chromosomes. For example, fluid studies may indicate elevated levels of certain proteins, which might suggest that there are certain abnormalities in the development of the fetus` nervous system.

Dear Dr. Johnson: My wife is pregnant and we had requested amniocentesis, even though she is under the age at which it is regularly recommended. We both felt that having this procedure would help us feel less anxious about possible birth defects, especially since I do not know much about my family's medical history. Our concern is related mainly to my father's side. He had a number of older siblings who died in infancy and no cause ever was determined. Based on what we told him, our doctor thought those infant deaths might have been from something called a "translocation" problem.

The Feb. 11, 1985, issue of Medical World News reports on a potentially exciting development in the diagnosis of fetal abnormalities. Specifically, the article describes the testing of fetal cells that circulate in the mother's blood during pregnancy. These cells--called trophoblasts--can be found as early as 8 weeks in pregnancy in the mother's blood. They are reported to reach their peak at 10 weeks, which is considerably earlier than the time in which amniocentesis can be utilized.